1. Do lots of approaches. This one is really simple, but obviously not easy. There’s a point at which you have to stop talking yourself out of it and just go talk to women. Do a lot of approaches. In rapid succession. At every venue you go to. Consider the 100 Approach Challenge.

If you need motivation, consider that probably 80+% of men will almost never approach a woman they find interesting. There’s never been an easier way to stand out from the crowd. Women out in the world are just waiting for a confident, cool guy to talk them up. Be that guy. As Roosh puts it in Bang, “just say the words.”

2. Use some canned openers. Putting aside game haters who insist any routine is evidence of loserdom, there’s considerable debate among game practitioners about the wisdom of practiced versus spontaneous openers. If you find approaching to be difficult, you should absolutely use canned openers to take some of the edge off.

It’s like a football coach who pre-plans play calls for certain key situations – you can’t script the entire ballgame, but pre-committing your two-point plays or your third and short package removes one huge piece of decision-making anxiety from what promises to be an already-tense situation.

I generally advise against the classic Mystery-style openers that ask for opinions or tell a mini-story, as they require a large investment in the initial conversation on the woman’s part and are also difficult to execute properly. They are great if you want or need to put on a show from the start, but that’s just not my style and is high-risk for guys who aren’t natural performers.

My theory on openers is that they should open the conversation and that’s it. I like to think of it like dealing cards from a deck. Once they’ve been shuffled, the cards you will get from the dealer are determined. You just have to stay in long enough to see if you wind up with a good hand.

Likewise, I believe a woman has 90% decided whether she wants to talk to you or not before you open your mouth (humans have very quick and sensitive circuitry to make those decisions before our rational minds can catch up). All you’re doing with an opener is finding a less direct way to say “hi, do you want to talk to me?” The simpler the opener, the softer her rejection will need to be if she chooses to do so.

In his book Bang, Roosh discusses a handful of basic openers that together fit almost any situation. I have adopted one of them into my nightly repertoire and it has almost never failed me:

“You look like you’re having the most fun here.” (said sarcastically or earnestly depending on the situation)

I also like to give a value-free compliment about a woman’s attire: “That’s a very blue/green/yellow dress/coat/scarf you’re wearing.”

Roosh’s “elderly opener” is a good one to have, especially in low-key indirect environments – “Hey is that a good phone/computer/book?”

If she is buying a lot of booze or alcohol-related stuff, I will sometimes note that she must be getting ready for a hell of party (or having a bad day).

I have always been a good opener, but sometimes I lose my spontaneity in the moment and go back to a stock one-liner; other times I’m a bit tense and it calms me to go back to the well.

3. Imagine you’ve already been rejected. Another item I picked up (ha!) from Roosh is to imagine you’ve already been rejected as you are about to make the approach. It sounds counterintuitive, but if you strike this frame you really have nothing to lose.

4. Assume friendly reaction. If you’re in a large social situation like a bar or a mixer event, imagine yourself like a waiter, usher or museum guide. Act as if it’s your job to chat people up and cursorily ask how they are doing, and expect a positive response. People will pick up on it and play to your role; some will be polite but nothing more, at least one of them will catch fire. Now shirley, plenty of people are rude to waiters, but almost everybody thinks those people are in the wrong.

5. Have a response ready. A cordial rejection is due a pleasant “it was nice talking to you.” But in keeping with (4), you should be vaguely surprised and mildly insulted if someone turns down your approach with hostility. Deliver a plain but surprised look of contempt or dismissal. DON’T overdo this and get butthurt, this is just acting to imply your intrinsic high value. I like to widen my eyes as if to say “is this chick for real?” The idea is that you are marking her down for her poor decision, and then moving on without a second thought. Sometimes a deadpan line or two is called for. “Is she always like this?” is a classic PUA neg that can also be employed to frame a woman as rude to her friends.

My absolute favorite line if a woman is getting irascible is to deadpan “you must be a real hit at parties.”

6. Approach for its own sake. Do approaches with zero expectation of closing. This not only takes the pressure off, it opens your pool of practice opportunities to married women, grannies, chicks out with their boyfriends, types you don’t dig, all sorts of new situations you might not consider if you were only opening girls you were attracted to at the outset. Approaching = starting a conversation, not “hitting on” anybody.

7. Don’t apologize. In my day I’ve actually had a few sets where a woman asks rudely “why are you talking to me?” Never let anybody make you think you shouldn’t be talking to new people. Go back to (5) and frame them in the wrong – if they didn’t want to be talked to, they can stay home where nobody will bother them. Otherwise, you (a high-value and interesting man) are going to talk to people you find interesting.

The most supplicating thing you should ever say in an opener is “excuse me,” which everybody knows is not really meant in the literal anyway.

As I’ve gotten older approaches have gotten much easier. There is no more anxiety. The problem I have is deciding whether I want to spend the energy. The bad part of getting older is I just don’t get excited about many things anymore.

Number 6, approach for its own sake, deciding from the get go that you aren’t going for a number close makes approaches trivially easy, at least it has for me. I do it all the time. All the practice makes your social skills come much more naturally. For those of us that must be deliberate with these things I liken it to being able to choose the right tool rather than the wrong tool. There are no more stripped screws or job stopping frustration.

I many times run a slight modification on it though. I intentionally don’t decide to number close until she convinces me she is worth my time. I use the conversation to make my decision. It also helps maintain frame in that she must qualify herself to me rather than the other way around.

I once watched a good friend get blown out and reverse it with ease due to a canned response. On his approach to a HB9 she tipped up the nose and flat out said “Not interested” almost as soon as he stopped in front of her. His immediate response: “‘Not interested’… That’s a very unusual name. Your parents were very original people. Hey, I’m John.” She actually cracked a smile and opened up after that. I thought it was a cool way to turn the rejection.

Used to do that all the time back in the day, and it is such weak sauce.

Not only is it fake sounding, but it’s supplicative- can I have your permission to talk to you? I don’t want to bother but… You get such odd looks when you start it up with an excuse me, and you’re pretty much burned from the start

“I many times run a slight modification on it though. I intentionally don’t decide to number close until she convinces me she is worth my time. I use the conversation to make my decision. It also helps maintain frame in that she must qualify herself to me rather than the other way around.”

That’s part of the point of not beginning with the end in mind – you aren’t committed to a course of action that might be unnecessary because she’s not up to snuff.

FFY,

“Used to do that all the time back in the day, and it is such weak sauce.”

Ah but whenever I drop it I always do the George McFly “exCUSE me…” with a tone of boldness (as if they bothered me first) and then drop some sarcasm or a neg with deadpan.

For really ingrown AA, try doing dry runs at home by yourself. Get used to hearing yourself saying corny things out loud, practice the ‘agree and amplify’ response reflex to shit tests, implement alpha body language, try to get the mindset of amused mastery right. That helped me a lot to start with.
It’s not entirely unrelated to how you would prepare for public speaking. Doubly effective if you can find a sympathetic friend to act as the chick
‘The more you sweat in training, the less you bleed in war’, as they say.

An open is something as simple as, “nice necklace, what made you wear that today.” if she replies you give the bullshit answer, “interesting, well it compliments your eyes well.” the last line is 100% bullshit. The second you deliver the last line all you are doing is gauging her for IOI’s . If you don’t get any….bail. If you do, escalate. If you do it it right she’ll shit test; then you just agree and amplify or neg.

And it’s all done in less than 5 minutes. So sack up and make move. If you don’t, you deserve to be v-less.

I’ve been trying out the uni library . Certain tables have a quick rotation of people and opportunities tend to arise for approach . I tried the ‘ Could you watch over my stuff for a min. ‘ . It’s a bit too indirect. I’d really like to attempt something as simple as ‘how are ya doing’ or ‘good morning ‘ . It seems odd to say this to a stranger.

Don’t drink (too much) coffee. I did that this morning while in the library and couldn’t calm down enough to engage eye contact or even sit still. It also makes you speak too rapidly . The mornings where I’ve been too tired or hungover are always the easiest for approaches and the responses even though I look terrible. It’s the time I don’t care what happens to me . (outcome independence)

Yesterday at the library computers a woman sat down beside me . Her clicks were quite loud so I said : you click aggressively . She giggled . We had a 15 min. chat . She did most of the talking, changing topics, and even introduced herself to me before I did . There was mutual attraction. I messed up with the number close as I did not have my phone on me and got flustered . She wrote down her full name so that I could add her on FB ; can’t find her in the search.

What if a man belongs to one of the races of men least attractive to women (Asian, say), and the women is an attractive white girl who never seriously considered dating an Asian guy (i.e. 95% of them)?

How can a man overcome that sort of disadvantage (both the real disadvantage and the psych-out factor)?

I get the impression that an Asian man has to have expert Game just to do as well as a white guy with minimal Game. It is not impossible, but the task is so imposing that it would be like being a short Hispanic guy who wants to play for the NBA.

What I meant to express was that “excuse me” was a perfectly fine thing to say. A guy should not go with anything more apologetic or supplicating, like “I’m sorry to bother you, but…” Excuse me is polite enough that you won’t be taken for a creep but bold enough that you won’t surrender your social value from the word go.

“What if a man belongs to one of the races of men least attractive to women (Asian, say), and the women is an attractive white girl who never seriously considered dating an Asian guy (i.e. 95% of them)?”

I’m afraid I don’t have a pithy answer to that one. My best advice is to cultivate a niche where your characteristics are either positively valued, or viewed as irrelevant/optional. This goes for bald guys, short guys, men of less-favored race.

Develop big-time inner game, and learn to read IOIs really quickly and well so you can screen out girls who don’t find you attractive. And consider some fancy peacock fashion.

There was an old game blogger dubbed “Vincent Ignatius” who I believe was Asian or part-Asian. He cleaned up like James Bond in a college town full of entitled white women (including women taller than him; he was really into fashion IIRC). There is/was another blogger named Advocatus Diabli who identified himself as South Asian and was constantly bitching about how American women wouldn’t give him the time of day (he used this as a springboard for arguments that game was bunk, IIRC). It’s really your choice if you want to be consumed by your frustration or solve it creatively.

Now let’s be real. Some girls, conditioned by subculture or fantasy, simply have a distinct image of the guy they want to date, and unless they have a period of enlightenment it’s very difficult to get around that. I personally have found the niches I’m NOT good in and avoided them – I’m not in the business of trying to talk some woman into being attracted to me. If she’s not, it’s not a big deal, I’ll find someone who is.

I’ve found college-educated middle upper class white women, especially those who participated in the Greek scene, are most in line with this Roissyite archetype of hypergamous, dominance-seeking, entitled, heavy on the 437-point checklist and mentally committed to a certain “look” for her dating life that values the man more for the image he can give to her than for his own person. Much has been written about this and I won’t belabor it. (Hipster communities sometimes have a bizarro parallel to this, but with lumberjack plaid instead of salmon polo shirts.)

However, I’ve been able to find lots of women who are trying to leave that scene, or were never into it to begin with. They tend to be more loner-ish or workaholic, but at the same time smarter and more interesting.

“I get the impression that an Asian man has to have expert Game just to do as well as a white guy with minimal Game. It is not impossible, but the task is so imposing that it would be like being a short Hispanic guy who wants to play for the NBA.”

I’m not going to lie, it requires some sharp game and good target selection to buck the prevailing archetype of society, but I think you’re psyching yourself out if you believe what you wrote above. You’re a niche product, and you’re going to have to look for a niche product. You can see that as an advantage or a challenge, or you can view it as a drag. The game is not over.

On another note since we’re on the topic:

Even in the 21st century, white people like I just described above make bullshit assertions that guys date Asian women because:
(a) “They want someone submissive” – almost anyone who has been in a relationship with an Asian woman knows that maternal assertion is definitely part of the culture
(b) “The geeky guys date Asians because they can’t get white girls” – a straight-up racist statement that reinforces their own haughty self-image.

I’ve had several conversations with white women about this topic, and to a woman they are very threatened by the idea that they don’t have a monopoly on white guys’ romantic attentions. It’s hilariously transparent intrasexual competition, dressed up as shaming language. I try to tell them that it’s not the bogus “submissiveness” or some kind of a “fetish” but a more pleasant, low-key demeanor and an appreciation for the guy’s beta qualities that explains a lot of the white-Asian relationships (Interestingly, as a studious, STEM-oriented guy, I’ve always been a big hit with Asian families I’ve met.)

I know that doesn’t apply directly to your situation, but it does vaguely overlap with some white women not being into Asian men.

Watch some highlights of last year’s NBA Finals with JJ Barea tearing it up against the Heat. Then go get your game on. In New York I’ve seen a decent number – not a ton, but a decent enough number – of Asian guys with attractive white girls. And it is a two way street. I am very attracted to Asian girls but many of them take a lot more work to break out of their bubble and hang with a white guy. And Asian girls almost always roll in packs, which can add to the AA, whereas you are more likely to see white girls in groups of only 2 or 3. Good luck.